1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a medical line connector fitting, and more specifically, to a releasable connector for use on an elongated medical article.
2. Description of Related Art
It is frequently desirable in the medical treatment of patients for medical personnel to have some form of access to the vasculature of the patient for delivery or withdrawal of fluids from the bloodstream. When such access is required over any period of time, it is common to introduce a catheter into the bloodstream of the patient to provide reusable access, for instance in order to deliver medication and/or fluids directly into the bloodstream of the patient. It may be desirable to leave such an intravenous catheter in place within the patient throughout treatment to avoid repeatedly having to introduce new catheters.
In intravenous applications, the catheter is generally short and includes a luer connector at one end that is designed for attachment to another medical line. Such a connector may also include a spin nut to lock the medical line to the catheter. In this way the same catheter may be connected to and released from different medical lines in order to exchange the medical lines without the need to introduce multiple intravenous catheters.
After use over an extended period of time, however, the luer connection between the medical line and the catheter hub may become stuck to each other and difficult to release. In particular, the force which was applied via the spin nut when locking the medical line to the catheter hub may press the medical line into the catheter with enough force that the medical line and catheter do not release upon unlocking the spin nut. In addition, fluid dries between the surfaces of the components of the luer connection, which further exacerbates the adhesion between the components.
In such circumstances, the medical technician may need to twist or pull the medical line apart from the catheter. The spin nut has a larger diameter and is easier to grasp than the medical line itself. Therefore a mechanism for transferring force from the spin nut to the medical line may be provided upon the luer connector in order to simplify release of the medical line from the catheter. One example of such a spin nut for use upon a luer connector is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,427 to Werschmidt et al.
The splines provided upon the Werschmidt device, however, allow only rotational force to be transferred between the spin nut and the medical line. The splines also do not impede axial motion of the spin nut in the proximal direction. As a result, the spin nut can migrate up onto the medical line, requiring medical personnel to locate the nut and thread it back into a proper position for usage when the medical line is to be attached or released.
Because of the importance and continued use of luer-type connectors between medical lines and intravenous catheters, there is a continued need for improvement in such releasable luer connectors.